 We've got a weird one, and I'm not entirely sure how to fully describe this in the most coherent way possible, because it's something I just sort of got confirmation of today. But you know, that's sort of something I've been practicing as these on-the-spots explanations of all sorts of different things. So we'll give it a go. For the past three or four months, I've been seeing a psychiatrist regarding some work-related things and relationship-related things. Originally leaning more towards the relationship-related things, we wound up figuring out that it was more work-related than what was actually bothering me. Whenever you're dealing with issues, you usually expect that anything that you're having issues with is related to a significant single event. It's not always, though, the death by a thousand cuts kind of thing, that you can become so overwhelmed by the same pattern, the same stereotype occurrence, and that can actually be responsible. So I'll sort of follow the flow of how we got to the conclusion, but I'll get the conclusion out of the way real quick. Today I had saw a second psychiatrist for a second opinion. This was a plant thing, the psychiatrist I've been seeing, I think is excellent, does a really good job, is very responsible, recognizes the importance of second opinions on doing differential diagnoses and things like that, and I very much appreciate that. So we've done the second opinion today and largely reached at the same conclusion that I have some kind of traumatic disorder that has went unnoticed for a long, long time. Leaning a little bit towards a variation of PTSD called complex post-traumatic stress disorder, also sort of known as developmental trauma disorder, and those aren't formal diagnoses just yet because there's lack of agreement on specifically what each of those really is, but to kind of describe in my instance, the symptoms of PTSD are there. I've been having some rather major sleep disturbances to where I'm not sleeping very well and my sleep is very irregular. One night I can be tired and go to sleep at like 9 o'clock, wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning and then wind up not being able to sleep until 4 o'clock in the morning, sleep until 11 o'clock and then wind up the next day being tired around 11 p.m. and it's just all over the place. There's also gaps in my memory that I'm not remembering a lot of things. That's incredibly unusual for me because I actually have a really good, verifiably good memory. It's a little different. I have a memory, I don't want to say disorder because it's not considered a disorder, but difference called hyperthymesia where you tend to be like in your head a lot and reviewing events even if they have no emotional significance and as such because you're going over things repeatedly, you remember them very well. You remember them in vivid detail. The accuracy problems that affect anybody's memory are still there with hyperthymesia. It's not like the photographic memory that's not a real thing. But for me to have large chunks that I just don't remember is odd, totally uncharacteristic, totally unusual emotional disturbances that have always been there, a desire to isolate that has always been there, trouble socializing that has always been there. So as I had said, thought originally this had to do with a relationship. So I've been in three serious relationships. The first one, very, you don't really expect the first one to work out anyways. You're still figuring out who you are and all that shit. Second one failed in the exact same way with me being largely uncertain what happened, but the exact same plan, the same stereotype of the relationship had occurred. But it was obvious in both cases that we weren't right for each other. It was just a matter of realizing that and coming to terms with that on both sides. And that happens to everybody. So there was no reason to think much into that. The third one, the most recent one that I'd gotten out of fairly recently. I met her a little over a year ago now, almost a year and a half ago actually. And there was really a really strong obvious chemistry there to the point where people around us were noticing it, people around us were saying stuff about it, like you got to get together, you'd be stupid not to, you got to see that you two are good for each other. You don't want to pass that up. And I think they were right. I truly do, but we both got stuff that we're working on. You know, I didn't read. Nobody realized that really about me until recently. We'll get into why, but she'd been working on some things for a while. I don't need to get into what those details are. Some of that's personal and I don't. Anybody who knows me personally is going to know who I'm talking about. And I don't want that information to get out there. But she's got some things that she's working on as well. That part she is open about. So it had followed the exact same stereotype that the relationship went the exact same way, even though we had both thought that we were really good for each other. We both thought that this was different. We both thought that we had actually for the first time found somebody we could spend the rest of our lives with and then clearly didn't again had followed the exact same course that every relationship I had ever been in followed. And so at that point it becomes clear that it's not a matter of finding the right person that there's something else going on. This was around the same as things were deteriorating and a little bit before the breakup or where you started to see the sleep disturbances and the memory loss start to happen. So it's not that, not exactly because the other thing that was going on where a lot of problems related to work that apparently I downplay a lot of the things that happened to me. In my case what the trauma is recognized as is repeated gaslighting. I'll have to remember to put in a citation for this but there's actually evidence that have been starting to come out in the past five years that about a particular thing that happens a lot with individuals on the autism spectrum it's gaslighting. It's not very well known why that happens as you know again it's fairly recently that it's been proven at all that it's happening. But it happens at a much higher rate than for general population so it's a unique phenomena. Something about being autistic causes there to be more. So there's a bit of a debate. It's already been ruled out that it's not a cognitive distortion it's not that people who are autistic are seeing gaslighting where it's not happening it is happening. What is being debated is whether or not autistic people are more sensitive to that or that it happens more often to individuals who are autistic. But regardless there is a vulnerability to gaslighting. Some people might say it's a bit foolish to explicitly state that because oh well you're telling people you're vulnerable to that and that's where we get into a phenomenon called revictimization. I'll try to have a citation for this as well but individuals who have experienced repeated trauma or a major traumatic episode start to actually broadcast that vulnerability or potentially it was there to begin with. This is a pretty well known thing now it's been known about for decades and it's why you see victims of rape or molestation that are at a very high rate raped or molested again. It's why you see individuals are in abusive relationships whether physical, mental, whatever kind of abuse they'll typically wind up eventually leaving that relationship get into another one and maybe the very next one doesn't become abusive again but they wind up in a much they're much more likely to wind up in abusive relationships again. In my case I'm more likely to get gaslit again and this has been happening a lot at work more than really anywhere else and it's been causing a lot of problems with my work history things deteriorating and that's something we've been noticing for a while and have been trying to explain as because I am autistic but considered one of the working disabled I do get vocational rehabilitation services through the state which have been hugely helpful if you are not aware that things like that exist if you have some something that impacts your ability to to work but you are able to work look into that it's very helpful and actually winds up costing the state a lot less than you being on disability so it's fantastic for everybody you stay working and it's costs everybody less but I get you know I get services to part of that and it's typical with the government they contract out so there are there are some things they get directly through the state but to the past almost year now eight months I think nine months maybe I've been getting these sort of job placement and retention services through a company and to kind of indicate how pervasive revictimization can be fairly recently I had sent a bunch of emails back that I had sent back and forth between this company was getting me services through who's supposed to be the ones helping me and just you know hey this doesn't seem right I don't really know if I'm getting what I'm supposed to be getting out of this I don't my misunderstanding the services that I'm supposed to be getting or what but it just doesn't this seems off so you know not not saying that I think specific things are happening or whatever just here is the communication you can look at you can look at it yourself both what I said and what they said and determine for yourself and it was even the opinion of the state without knowing any of the emotional trauma that I had been or the emotional disturbances that I've been dealing with knowing the sleep disturbance I've been dealing with any of that but they were not actually helping me and were actually downplaying the issues that I was having gaslighting that's how pervasive revictimization can be that even people in a position where they're supposed to be helping can pick up on very subtle cues and do the exact same thing and as you can imagine that leads to a very bad feeling of I mean helplessness help helplessness really that who is going to and then this this becomes really unsurprising when you consider a lot of things why I tend to prefer positions where I'm responsible for basically everything why I tend to do a lot of stuff on my own and take full responsibility for things now I have some videos that make it clear that I have a woodshop and then I make some things on my own because I so dissatisfied with the way a lot of products are built that I genuinely don't trust even buying like furniture because I was just going to fall apart in a few years because it's all made like garbage and I'd rather make it myself that feeling is pervasive that spans into that much of my life that I feel like I need to be the one to do things because nobody else is going to do it right the obvious problem there is you can't do everything yourself there's not enough time for you to do everything yourself you can't fix every problem that you notice part of being a contributing member of society is not just going to work and paying your taxes it's also working in a collaborative way and while what I'm doing can't be described as being a leech it's not being dependent on everybody you know I've been trying to stay working in everything take as little from the state as possible spent most of my working life not even getting vocational rehabilitation services through the states that was a much more recent thing I've never been on disability or anything like that but that's obviously not healthy for me because again I can't I can't be doing everything myself I have to have downtime where I relax I have to have downtime where I really just go and socialize with other people I can't be continuously isolating like I do so how this affects my more romantic relationships is not well understood yet we're not even sure exactly what diagnosis to give it yet um like I said leaning a little towards complex post-traumatic stress disorder but part of being a responsible medical professional is doing a differential diagnosis and you know narrowing it down to a category of things and then rolling out the things that it's not and that part still needs to be done but it is clear and agreed upon independently that there is some kind of dramatic disorder going on so that's my day